


The Case of the Sloppy Heiress

by overthemoon



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25605592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overthemoon/pseuds/overthemoon
Summary: Based on the prompt:"A broken vase, the radio is on, and there are scuff marks."Bespoke casefic for a friend who helped me scratch that deduction itch.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	The Case of the Sloppy Heiress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladydragona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydragona/gifts).



> Technically the prompt I got included the case conclusion, because I asked for it, but I'm not post it here, because duh.  
> Many thanks to Lady Dragona for saving me from the late night understimulated temper tantrum of the Sherlock muse.

He’s not allowed to put any more bullets in the wall, which, dull. Unfortunately, the ceiling had failed to grow any more interesting while Sherlock lay prone on the sofa staring at it.

Anything for a case, to drive off the tedium and the oppressiveness of the world. He’d even take one of Mycroft’s bloody government cases if only for the entertainment of watching Mycroft fail at dragging Sherlock into his delicate little government puppet play. 

John dropped into the armchair and opened a manila file. “Lestrade decided not to deal with this,” John waved his hands at Sherlock’s limp form. “But let’s see.”

John started to read out loud. “Apparently there’s not much to go on right now. Couple of pictures… There’s a broken vase. Neighbors said that the radio was on at the approximate time of death, and there are scuff marks on the windowsill.”

Sherlock sighed and held out his hand for the file. John always missed details.

Skimming the pictures gave him a better idea of the layout of the flat. Small, a studio dressed in white minimalist furniture and art on the walls, that if he remembered correctly, had forgeries on the black market fetching around ten thousand quid.

The window was open, leading to a small balcony. The small portable radio was plugged into the kitchen counter, apparently playing something horrendously modern and mumbly. The cheap plastic of the model didn’t seem to match with the expensive set of plates that lay about on the marble counter tops with mold gathering on the food. But there was the pile of envelopes marked “Urgent. Please Respond” in bold red lettering, and the opened half finished bottles of expensive alcohol, bottle caps still on the counter instead of in the empty bin.

Anderson’s camera angles had grown more tolerable as of late, but still, given that the smudges on the pristine white carpet more resembled muddy fingers than actual boot prints, it seemed unlikely that the intruders had come through the window. If there had been intruders. 

It certainly didn’t match the profile of a simple smash and grab. The portrait hanging over the (still screwed into the wall) plasma television certainly could’ve fetched a nice price if any robber had a fence worth their salt.

Lestrade had also failed to find a body, which was annoying.

Why were the MET even bothering to classify this as a murder then?

A brief glance at the victim’s bio spelled out a repetitive picture: a young twenty-something who liked to go out and about partying when not attempting to study at a local university. A “friendly” girl who just liked to “have fun” and whose friends had worriedly called in her suspicious silence after only a day?

And yet there was a photo of a stack of textbooks still wrapped in shipping plastic with empty shot glasses on top of the pile. How studious. 

John cleared his throat. “So, are you interested?” John asked.

Sherlock scowled. Did avoiding Sally Donovan nattering at him about how some poor bird probably drank too much and got shoved into the Thames count as being interested?

The door hadn’t been broken in and been locked from the inside. Aside from a broken empty vase, there weren’t any other signs of a struggle in the flat, which, given the level of detritus, should have been more obvious. Here lived a person who clearly wanted to enjoy life’s material pleasures and should have been fighting to hang onto them.

“She’s not even dead,” Sherlock responded. 

“Lestrade seemed to think so,” John said.

“Lestrade is an idiot,” Sherlock said. If the body had really fallen into the Thames, the way the report indicated they were searching, it should have turned up by now. The tides were fairly predictable and some poor mudlark should’ve posted screaming to social media by now about a body. Not to mention a robbery requires theft and easy things to fence like electronics lay charging on a sofa arm, neatly plugged in to a nearby power strip.

“She really should’ve gotten better friends to be in on it,” Sherlock said. Still, as far as entertainment went, this had been passably tolerable.

“Her friends were the ones who called in her disappearance?” John said.

“Yes, as they were told to,” Sherlock said. “Hopefully she didn’t have too many friends, the cut won’t go far given how long it takes insurance investigators to deal with that sort of thing.”

Stupid. She’d probably gotten a friend to call in a histrionic call, probably complete with fake tears, and then decided to hide out at their flat.

“Sherlock, she’s dead,” John said.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “They didn’t even bother getting another body,” he said. “Too convenient, isn’t it, that she lives near a river with extremely predictable and shallow tides and yet there’s no body dressed in what she was last seen wearing?”

There were designer clothes peeking from an open closet and a messily made bed, and with the amount of spending surely the closet should’ve been more full, the laptop on the designer furniture desk should have been missing. 

“Maybe it hasn’t turned up yet,” John said.

“If this is the trust fund child Lestrade says it is, the parents should’ve stormed the office of the MET to demand and pay for a river dredging, and yet it was the friends who called it in, and the parents remained silent? No, there is no body,” Sherlock said.

“Maybe the parents are just estranged?” John said. Finally, an intelligent thought!

“Exactly,” Sherlock said. “Suddenly Mummy and Daddy aren’t paying for your posh lifestyle anymore, there’s discussions of limiting whatever they call pocket money these days, and there’s bills piling up on the counter! If you’re dead, you kill two birds with one stone. Mummy and Daddy finally get off your back about living up to the family name and you collect a nice life insurance payout. All you have to do is wait for everything to blow over while the friend you’ve named as your beneficiary finances your lifestyle while both of you wait for the check to clear.”

Sherlock smiled. When the MET finally caught up to her, he hoped there would be pictures of whatever probably horrendous wig or dye job she’d managed to scrounge up in the meantime.

“Tell Lestrade to start checking more thoroughly on the friend’s flats,” he said. “And have people watching the back entrances in case she tries to slip out while her friend stalls Lestrade at the front door.”

John sighed and began to text Lestrade.

Sherlock dropped the file on the floor and started back up at the flat’s ceiling. Perhaps he could devise an experiment to study acid splatter in a vertical setting if Lestrade couldn’t be arsed to find him a proper murder to investigate this week.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes your brother decides to get into Sherlock seven years after you did and decides to like Mycroft which means your Sherlock muse comes back just to spite his Mycroft-on-main interest  
> In other words I got slammed with the deduction itch for the first time in a long time and I figured I might as well post it before I overthought things. This is basically a first draft.  
> Hope y'all liked it.  
> Prompt structure is "Three objects and a case conclusion" so if you'd like to leave future prompts, please do so in comments and I may take them up in the future.


End file.
